Hope Comes to Brockton Bay
by ack1308
Summary: Worm is a dark world, a grim world. Everything is gritty, everyone has an agenda. The world itself is spiraling toward ruin. Enter Hope. She's a nice kid with super-powers, who just wants to help people. But will she have enough of an effect on the world to stave off disaster? Only time will tell. NOTE: Hope is an original character, created using the GURPS RPG.


**Hope Comes to Brockton Bay**

Part 1

The horizon was covered by clouds. Suspended high above the surface of the planet, the Simurgh orbited. Wings extended, like a rose unfurled, comprised of wings without pairs, a starburst or snowflake of bent angles; a grim star on the horizon, one that stargazers avoided looking at too closely.

Her eyes were wide open, but they did not move to track any cloud formations far, far below. She slept.

But higher intelligences such as that of the Simurgh had varying levels of dormancy, and the dreams of the Destroying Angel were alien and vast.

Dreaming, the Simurgh reached out. A mind's arm shuffling pieces on the board, seeking elements to alter the playing field. To add new elements to the game.

Finding one, she turned in over in her sight. It intrigued her. Alien. Different. Like her, it lacked the shards that swam through the many _Ever_. It was different. But it felt the same.

The Simurgh reached out, and took hold on this fascinating different. And with a pull, added it to the scenario, nudging it towards other elements.

The paradigm ... changed.

* * *

Hope soared.

The sky was broad and blue, and the only clouds were small and soft and the temperature was perfect. The sun glinted on her outspread wings. She pulled into a long, high loop, the air keening between the crystals that acted as her feathers, as much a part of her world as breathing and eating.

All she knew was that she loved to fly. Of all the changes that had come over her due to her transformation, her wings were the ones that set her apart most, and yet afforded her the most joy. They let her step away from the earth, separate herself from the memories of living in the gutter, see the world as a wider place –

- a jolt, just as she was at the highest point of the arc. An instant of disorientation, of pain, of a strange _twisting_ sensation -

- and then she felt the wind on her wings, the sun on her skin again. She was flying again (still?), albeit inverted. A flick of a wing corrected that; now she was gliding right side up.

_What? What the heck was that?_ She took stock. All eight limbs accounted for… no blood. There was no one around, no one in the air at all. And she was high enough off the ground –

She looked down.

"Okay, where the heck _am_ I?"

* * *

This wasn't New York State … and that didn't look like New York City. She glided down toward the city below; the buildings, the layout, the land. It was all different.

_Okay. I'm not in New York anymore. But that's okay. Maybe this is a test. Maybe Mr Goodkind, or Risi, put me somewhere else, to see how I do under stress. Find my way back, that sort of thing._

But even as she told herself that, she felt the distant niggle of worry. She had been up and down the east coast of the United States a couple of times. If it was still the same time of day – the early-afternoon sun had not moved appreciably – this was still the east coast. Or… she was pretty sure…

And yet, she did not recognize this city.

Maybe they stranded her in a different country, with a different language and customs. _That's silly,_ she told herself. _But maybe they did it anyway._

"Oh well. I guess I'll just land and ask for directions then."

Wings chiming as she flapped a couple of times to regain speed and a little altitude, she aimed herself down one of the major streets, looking for anyone or anything that looked official. As she dropped lower, all four wings spread wide, she frowned. _This place looks like it was hit by a hurricane. Debris in the streets, water damage everywhere –_ _am I in New Orleans?_

No – she knew New Orleans, had actually been there, helping with the cleanup. This was not the Big Easy.

_So where am I? And why are those people screaming and running away from me?_

She was still distracted by that question when the thunderbolt hit her in the back and smashed her to the ground.

* * *

Whatever had hit her took her off guard; she never saw the blow coming. But she was still conscious when she hit the street, so her wings had time to fold protectively around her. Crystal chimed as her wings took the brunt of the collision with the ground, tumbling over and over, until she finally skidded to a stop ... and when she finally unfolded her wings from around her, they had held.

She was unhurt, except for a stabbing pain in the back when she tried to breathe, possibly a fractured rib. A little dazed, she got up on to one knee, in time to see a feminine figure land neatly nearby. _Okay, what the heck -?_

But she had little time to take it in, because there was now a man standing in front of her. A teenager, rather. Maybe her own age, maybe a little older. He had a weird costume on, covered in clock faces. Some of them moved. In her rattled condition, she was fascinated by that tiny detail. _How does he get that effect?_

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Here, let me help you up." He extended his hand. Automatically she took it –

* * *

Abruptly, a cage surrounded her. Many more people were around her now, mostly costumed, some in armor and dark uniforms - _the Army? The SWAT team?_ The boy who had begun to help her up was standing, watching her intently. He didn't hold a gun, but some of the others did.

"- should be coming out of it about now," he was saying. "Ah, we have movement." He stepped forward; his helmet had an opaque visor, but his voice was pleasant; he could have been smiling. "Sorry about that, but when we got a report that The Simurgh was flying in, we couldn't take any chances."

"Wait, what?" she said. When he heard her voice, the guy with the clock-face costume stepped back, and some guns came up. "No, wait, really. What is this? What's a Simurgh? And why did you _attack _me?" She looked around, through the bars of the hastily-cobbled-together cage, at the damaged buildings, the evidence of water damage. Then she looked back at the group of people surrounding her, wavering between hostility and ... curiosity?

"… Where am I?"

He told her. Two words. It didn't help her confusion any.

_Where the heck is __**Brockton Bay**__?_

* * *

"Okay," said Director Piggot, "so fill me in. What do we have here?"

Legend spoke first. "Subject is a teenage – girl? – with pale, glowing skin, and multiple wings. Initial reports claimed that the Simurgh was flying over the city, so we scrambled, fast. The Wards were in the area, and when she dropped below the level of the buildings, Glory Girl hit her from behind. This dropped her to the ground, where the Wards were coming on the scene. Clockblocker froze her, and Weld built a cage around her before she unfroze. She's a little confused, but not aggressive. However, given her resemblance to the Simurgh …"

"What," persisted Piggot, "do we know for _certain_?"

"She's… alien?" said Panacea. "I don't understand all of it, her physiology. Some of it is just out of place on a human, but the rest crosses over into some kind of biological-mineral middle ground." She paused for thought. "I'm not even entirely certain she is a… a 'she'. There are analogue organs in the right places, but they aren't for reproduction, I think. Maybe."

"Only a passing resemblance, then," interrupted Alexandria. "Most of her is human, or close enough?" She pointed out the monitor which displayed the newcomer sitting in a cell, fidgeting just a little nervously.

"Yes, yes, I think so."

"Her skin ... was too hard to get a needle through," confessed the PRT medic. "It's flexible and sensitive, but extremely resistant to intrusion. We eventually had to take swabs from the mouth for DNA sampling. Quite possibly resistant to small-arms fire. Also, the stress tests we put her through indicate she could lift perhaps half a ton, if pressed. And no, we don't know how she glows, but it's linked in some way to her emotional state."

"So, a low-level Brute," noted Piggot.

"Oh, and that's another thing," said Panacea. "Vick- Glory Girl hit her fairly hard, and she seemed to be favouring her back when she first got up, but by the time I got to her, there was only a fading bruise. She's a regenerator."

"Don't forget the wings," added Miss Militia. "They'd make her a Mover. They're also very strong and very flexible. They're made up of some sort of organic crystal-analogue that rivals diamond on the hardness scale. And," she added with emphasis, "apart from, you know, being wings, they aren't really like the Simurgh's wings. Though the muscular systems she's got in place to make them work ..."

"So ... her wings are bulletproof?" asked Alexandria, cutting her off. "She could use them as a shield?"

"That's exactly what she did when Glory Girl brought her down," confirmed Legend. "They cushioned her prior to impact with the ground."

"Oh, this just keeps getting better," scowled the Director.

"There's more," said the medic. "We ran a basic psych evaluation on her. She's either the scariest, most convincing charismatic psychopath since Jack Slash ... or she's a truly sweet, innocent, caring, nice teenage girl who happens to have wings and a glowing skin."

"You are joking," said Legend, looking at the picture on the monitor. "_That's_ a pure psychopath?"

"She could be just a nice kid with powers," objected Miss Militia.

"Don't make me laugh," scoffed Piggot. "With _that_ level of power? There has to be something wrong with her."

A short silence, all of them watching the monitor.

"Panacea," asked Alexandria, "did she have any identifying marks? Tattoos, birthmarks, anything like that?"

"No," said Panacea. "Nothing. Not even a scar, anywhere on her. Why?"

"Just curious."

She looked hard at the image on the monitor.

_Who __**are **__you?_

* * *

It was fifteen minutes later; they sat in an interview room. There was a plastic jug of water on the table, along with two plastic cups. Alexandria sat opposite her, legs and arms crossed, staring at the younger girl.

The girl – Alexandria found that her mind insisted on calling her that, despite Panacea's comments on her unique anatomy – looked up at her.

"My name is Hope," she said, in that beautiful crystal-chime voice that the others had reported. "I don't understand what I'm doing here. I don't understand what I've done wrong."

"Hope," repeated Alexandria. "Is that your actual name or your cape name?"

"I don't _wear_ a cape," objected Hope. "It's just the name I use. It's the name I was born with. What's _your_ name? And why do people keep asking me questions but never giving me any answers?"

Alexandria noted the quite human frustration in her voice.

"Hope," she said. "My name is Alexandria. You're here because people thought you were the Simurgh. We had to take all these precautions until we could be sure you had nothing to do with her. Do you understand?"

"No!" retorted Hope, frustration still evident in her voice. "People keep telling me that too, but no-one ever tells me what a Simurgh is, or why it's so bad I look like one."

Alexandria blinked.

"You don't know what the Simurgh _is_?" she asked blankly.

* * *

"She had no idea," she said later. Leaning back in a comfortable office chair, she closed her eyes momentarily. Legend sat nearby, watching her intently. Eidolon stood off to the side, apparently lost in his own thoughts, but Alexandria knew he'd be listening. Director Piggott sat at her desk, her face immobile.

"No idea about what?" asked Legend.

"About the Endbringers. About the Slaughterhouse Nine. About the Protectorate." A significant silence.

"Ah," interjected Eidolon. "She's from an alternate."

"She's from an alternate," agreed Alexandria. "According to her, super-powers have only been around for about six months. She was one of the first Empowered – as she says – who went public after it happened. Everyone with powers apparently got their abilities at the same time. It wasn't really a trigger event; there was no trauma involved. She says she was a teenage runaway, sleeping on the streets, and one day – ping – she triggered."

"Just like that," Legend said, his voice tinged with skepticism.

"Just like that," Alexandria echoed. "She says it hurt when the wings grew out, but that was over quickly. And ever since, she's been happy to use her powers to help people. And to fly. She says that being able to fly is the best thing that ever happened to her."

"I have scanned her," said Eidolon slowly, "her emotions and attitudes seem to match what you have reported. Despite her less-than-stellar beginnings, this 'Hope' appears to be just as friendly and outgoing as you say she is."

"Well," said Director Piggot, "that settles it. She's definitely from an alternate."

"Why do you say that?" asked Alexandria.

"Do you have to ask?" snorted Piggot. "A teenage runaway, and she's this well-adjusted? Come _on_."

* * *

"It's just a routine check," said the PRT officer soothingly. There were capes standing by, and this new parahuman was only about five foot six, but he didn't want her getting nervous and deciding to lash out. Although her two pairs of wings were currently neatly furled, they didn't have to stay that way if she didn't want them to, and they looked like they could stretch out to six or seven feet in length.

"We just need to get your fingerprints for our files," he went on. "For one thing, that may tell us if you have any counterparts on Earth Bet."

"I'm not arguing with that," Hope said agreeably. "I'm just saying that you're wasting your time. Especially if you try to fingerprint me using an ink pad."

"Let me be the judge of that, okay?" The PRT officer handed her the ink pad. "Roll each finger on the pad and then on the paper in the correct space, please."

Hope raised one perfect silver-white eyebrow and quirked a smile, but did as he requested. Her finger – the neatly trimmed nail adding a faint pinkish hue to the pearlescent silvery-blue glow of her skin – pressed firmly down on the ink pad as she rolled it from side to side. Then she placed her finger on the paper and rolled it in the same way. When she lifted it away, there was not a mark on the paper. It was as clean, in fact, as her fingertip.

The officer stared at the paper, then at her fingertip. He had watched her roll her finger on it. Reaching over, he dabbed his pinky on the pad. It came away stained purple.

"Okay," he said wearily as he wiped the ink off on a paper towel, "suppose you tell me how you did that?"

Hope shrugged; the motion made her wings ripple out a gentle chime. "Nothing sticks to my skin," she said. "Water, mud, ink, glue, duct tape – it all falls off me."

The PRT officer made a faint growling sound in his throat. "I guess," he said heavily, "that we're going to have to wait till the digital fingerprint pad is free. That doesn't use ink, at least."

"Um ..." said Hope.

"What?"

* * *

OPEN FILE

Addendum to Temporary File: HOPE.

Subject possesses no discernible fingerprints.

CLOSE FILE

* * *

To be continued ...


End file.
